EUROPEAN UNION
Sanrio fined over curbs
Authorities on Tuesday fined Sanrio Co, the Japanese firm behind Hello Kitty, for restricting cross-border online sales of toys, mugs, bags and other products featuring the cartoon cat girl. Sanrio yesterday said the 6.2 million euros (US$7 million) fine would be recorded as an extraordinary loss in its fiscal first-quarter financial statement. “It was fined because it violated the bloc’s competition rules with licensing agreements that banned traders from selling merchandise in different countries in the bloc,” European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said. Sanrio said it had cooperated with the investigation.
CHINA
Factory prices unchanged
Factory prices were unchanged last month from a year earlier, data showed yesterday, reviving the prospect of deflation as a trade spat with the US hits the crucial manufacturing sector. The producer price index came in at zero, down from a 0.6 percent rise in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said. The reading is the weakest since August 2016 and fell short of the 0.3 percent forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. At the same time the consumer price index — a gauge of retail inflation — hit 2.7 percent, the same as last month, which was the highest since February last year.
UNITED KINGDOM
Automakers lift economy
The economy rebounded in May as vehicle factories resumed work following Brexit-related shutdowns. GDP rose 0.3 percent after a decline in the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. In the three months through May, GDP rose 0.3 percent. Powering the recovery was the manufacturing sector, as vehicle output surged 24 percent on the month, following a drop of the same magnitude in April. Manufacturing as a whole increased 1.4 percent and provided the biggest contribution to the overall expansion.
AVIATION
Plane tickets to see new tax
France is to introduce a new charge on plane tickets from next year, with revenue used to fund environmentally friendly alternatives, French Minister of Transport Elisabeth Borne said on Tuesday. The “ecotax,” costing 1.50 euros to 18 euros, would apply to most flights departing in the country, Borne said. The only exceptions would be for domestic flights to Corsica and overseas territories, and connecting flights that pass through the country. It would not apply to flights arriving in the country. Shares in Air France-KLM and budget airlines EasyJet PLC and Ryanair Holdings PLC dropped following the announcement. Industry group International Air Transport Association called the ticket charge “misguided.”
TECHNOLOGY
Cisco buying Acacia
Cisco Systems Inc has agreed to buy Acacia Communications Inc for about US$2.6 billion, the technology giant’s latest acquisition as it seeks technologies to meet customer demand for more robust networks. The San Jose, California-based company is to pay US$70 a share, a 46 percent premium to Acacia’s closing price on Monday, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday. Cisco’s latest acquisition makes chips and machines that help translate optical signals into electronic data. Acacia’s products are used to speed the flow of information around data centers and telecommunication networks. The deal is expected to close in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal 2020 year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day